Trying to crawl inside the television set to get her parents' attention, but blocked by the tubes and wires, she went the long way around to get herself seen onscreen. In thirty-five stand alone essays and stories comprising a very late in life love story, a person who feels fictitious learns to become real from the roles she plays. Chartoff exposes her artistry and love blunders in her hilarious, heartbreaking, and hopeful memoir Odd Woman Out . From her 1950s childhood in a suburb she describes as an "abusement park" to performing Molière on Broadway, to voicing characters on the popular Rugrats cartoon series, Melanie Chartoff was anxious "out of character," preferring any imaginary world to her real one. Obsessed with exploring her talent, fame came as a destabilizing byproduct. Suppressing a spiritual breakdown while co-starring on a late-night comedy show, Chartoff grew alienated. Given a private audience with a guru, she finally hears her inner voice, '70s soul singer Barry White, crooning, "Get out, baby!" All the while, she's courted by men with homing pigeons and Priuses, idealized by guys who want the girl du jour from TV to be their baby rearer or kidney donor. Go backstage on Broadway, behind the scenes on network television, and inside the complicated psyche of a performer struggling in the role of a complete human. ITrying to crawl inside the television set to get her parents' attention, but blocked by the tubes and wires, she went the long way around to get herself seen onscreen. In 35 stand alone essays and stories comprising a better-late-than -never love story, a person who feels fictitious learns to become real from the roles she plays. Chartoff exposes her artistry and love blunders in her hilarious, heartbreaking, and hopeful memoir Odd Woman Out. From her 1950s childhood in a suburb she describes as an "abusement park" to performing Molière on Broadway, to voicing characters on the popular Rugrats cartoon series, Melanie Chartoff was anxious "out of character," preferring any imaginary world to her real one. Obsessed with exploring her talent, fame came as a destabilizing byproduct. Suppressing a spiritual breakdown while co-starring on a late-night comedy show, Chartoff grew alienated. Given a private audience with a guru, she finally hears her inner voice, '70s soul singer Barry White, crooning, "Get out, baby!" All the while, she's courted by men with homing pigeons and Priuses, idealized by guys who want the girl du jour from TV to be their baby rearer or kidney donor. Go backstage on Broadway, behind the scenes on network television, and inside the complicated psyche of a performer struggling in the role of a complete human. Odd Woman Out intimately exposes the nature of identity in the life of a performing artist, snapshotting the hopeful search for a self Chartoff could love and someone else's self to love, too. "Odd Woman Out is a celebratory memoir in which the underside of fame is addressed with humor and wisdom." -- Foreward Reviews "To me, it reads as an older, wiser version of Lindsay Lohan's Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen...Melanie was able to write a more nitty-gritty, bare-all kind of memoir and you can tell it was carefully crafted and curated and not popped out with a ghostwriter. While this book is hilarious at times, it also showcases a certain kind of pain that Melanie has lived with and it is hopeful, inspirational, and wildly heartbreaking."- The Book Slut "Chartoff really is very funny. Her sense of wordplay and timing show on the page as well as they ever have on a stage or screen." -- Pop Matters "Instant classic...Melanie Chartoff is a mega-talent, in not just comedy and acting but in writing. You're completely enveloped in the story - her pain is your pain; you feel her joys and triumphs completely...This book is a joy and a triumph. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. -- POP DOSE "A different kind of celebrity memoir... a reminiscence for the rest of us..Melanie Chartoff offers insights for other aging adults...after 200 pages of getting to know Melanie Chartoff, the reader can't help but cheer her on." Annie Tobey for BOOMER MAGAZINE "a very insightful chronicle of a very funny woman maturing in an odd profession in which we're all very odd." -- John Goodman, actor "Melanie Chartoff's book reads like a novel. A thriller, a tragedy, a comedy and romance. The eloquence with which she presents her inner world is a service to any reader who lives a deeply examined life. I felt like I'd gotten 25 years of therapy just observing her trajectory towards serenity and the ability to say, 'f*ck you' to her personal demons. ... 'Odd Woman Out' is a highly personal thrill ride. A must." -- Laraine Newman, actor "Melanie Chartoff's 'Odd Woman Out' is a brilliant and engaging read. Chartoff, an actress of great wit and charm, is candid about navigating both the fleshpots of Hollywood and her own inner minefield. What emerges is extremely funny, often touching, often pro